The majority of our readers will never have heard of Latitude 11, or of Christian Schwendt and his wife Utisha, who ran this small Tobago restaurant until it was forced to close in 2008.

This post is therefore directed at the wider global market and specifically for anyone with, or considering, involvement with Christian Schwendt. Allow me to stress that I have no personal issues with Schwendt, although I confess to huge frustration that someone with such clear talent could so waste his skills and abuse the trust of those who invest or show faith in him.

A baker by trade, German-national Christian Schwendt worked for a number of Tobago hotels as manager/chef. Most of these jobs lasted only a matter of months and he left every job under a cloud. Deceit and financial issues appear to be the common thread.

In early 2007, Schwendt opened Latitude 11 in Pigeon Point Road. The great start was not to last. (more here).

After the closure of Latitude 11, the Schwendt’s were appointed as managers of a large rental villa in Tobago. The UK owners finally kicked them out for non-payment of rent. (more here)

Word had spread and the Schwendt’s found it impossible to work within the Tobago hospitality industry. I heard nothing more until a hotel owner in Costa Rica contacted me after finding this forum. It was the same old story. Christian Schwendt was employed by the hotel, gave a few months good service then started to run up debts and demonstrate increasingly deceitful behaviour. It appears that the Schwendt’s got wind of the owner’s investigations, because they disappeared from the hotel, in the middle of the night, a few days later.

We heard nothing more about the Schwendts until earlier this week, when I received an email from a hotel owner in Germany who had employed Christian in recent months. Once again the story revolves around claims of deceit and non-payment of rents and other debts, etc. They got rid of him, but he is now working for another restaurant in a nearby village/town, where apparently the same is happening again. Although no longer in their employment, they are still concerned because Schwendt still lives in the immediate neighbourhood and has allegedly made threats against them.

It is clear that Christian Schwendt is a total menace. As the approaches from Costa Rica and Germany show, his tentacles spread far further afield than Tobago. Now, whilst I have more than enough to occupy my time and have no wish to get involved in this man’s activities, I would not be true to the very principles on which this website runs if I did not help to provide some means of employers and/or investors in establishing background information about this sad man. So, if you have any information about this man, past or present, please contact me. Any and all information will be used simply to inform those with current involvement with Schwendt and/or for any authorities that undertake Internet searches and find this site. Anonymity will be honoured when requested. We should all work together to help stop this man.

My heart goes out to the German restaurant owner who contacted me this week. Their correspondence clearly indicates how distressed they are by the situation.